The Art of Losing
by KateToast
Summary: A new sort of game began when Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark came back to District 12 as victors of the 74th Hunger Games. Except instead of 24 tributes, the only other player in this arena was Gale Hawthorne. THG and CF.


_A/N: __First attempt at writing from a Gale POV, trying to get a feeling for the character. Includes events from "Hunger Games" and part of "Catching Fire." _

**XXX**

"The art of losing isn't hard to master,

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster."

- _One Art_, Elizabeth Bishop

**XXX**

A new sort of game began when Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark came back to District 12 as victors of the 74th Hunger Games. Except instead of 24 tributes, the only other player in this arena was Gale Hawthorne.

Before the Games that changed everything, Gale had thought he and Katniss were going somewhere. It seemed inevitable: their families had become interwoven in the hungry years following the mining explosion that killed their fathers; they understood one another better than anyone else in the world. A shared experience that tied them to each other, the knot tightened with every companionable outing into their wooded sanctuary. They helped each other, listened to each other, teased each other; loved each other.

But then Primrose Everdeen was Reaped, and nothing, especially not life, was a guarantee anymore.

After the girl on fire, and the broadcasted declaration of feelings, and the tricks played to protect, and the rule changes, and the endless cozy days spent in a cave, and the final showdown, and the last act of rebellion, Katniss and Peeta came home, and Gale was an impatient, heartsick _cousin _ready to make his move. The cameras left and the star-crossed lovers stopped speaking, and Gale took his chance. Over and over, with few positive results. The Victory Tour took Katniss away again, and when she returned Gale noticed something different between she and Mellark, and he didn't like it. He'd thought he was smarter than the rest of the gullible idiots in Panem, who couldn't see that their lovers were phonies – but then Gale saw them exchange this _look_, one he couldn't fathom at all, and he wondered (not for the first time) if _he_ wasn't the idiot in all of this.

What had happened on the Tour? He would never ask Katniss outright; though he did stew for hours down in the mines formulating countless questions he wanted her to answer, some innocent enough, some downright mean and hurtful. Sometimes he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, or rip off his shirt and make her see his scarred, mangled back, and ask her – _what do I have to do? What else can I possibly do?_

Before he found any nerve to even broach a single one of his questions, she was gone again, no goodbyes exchanged. This time, Gale knew, the outcome of her journey was far bleaker. He stayed quiet and calm as Prim sobbed herself to sleep against his chest, and only when he next escaped to the woods did Gale break down over his best friend, what was, and what could have been.

Now he sat in the school auditorium for the mandatory viewing of the interviews, flanked by the Everdeens and his mother, brothers and sister. He was exhausted from another long day down below, but since his whipping incident he'd been doing what he was told (for now, at least). He didn't make a sound as the three-minute interviews passed, though others in the audience sighed and whispered as each beloved victor took on the role of tribute for the second time. His legs bounced restlessly as they neared the end, because it meant he'd see Catnip and know that for at least one more night she was okay.

He didn't hear a word of her interview. Instead the sound from the speakers and the crowd in the auditorium buzzed through his brain like static. He could only watch her, Panem's girl on fire, as her wedding dress transformed her into some dark, striking winged creature. From two seats over Gale heard Mrs. Everdeen's quick inhalation of surprise.

_Goddammit_, he wanted his hunting partner home. By the time she was walking away from Caesar Flickerman, Gale was strategizing how to reach the Capitol and take out as many government officials as possible. They needed to pay for this, for taking away the futures of not just Katniss and her fellow victor/tributes, but the countless other children that had been, and would be, forced into these heinous Games.

Mellark took a seat. Gale thought he looked nervous, understandably so, behind his slick blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He remembered Mellark's watchful gaze on Katniss across the school hallway, the way she would always avoid his glances but then peek back at him, like there was a secret there between them. At least back then Gale had known the Merchant kid held no threat. The Hunger Games had turned Mellark and Gale into rivals, and they'd each known it for the too-short time they'd both been in 12.

Gale wasn't listening again, instead savoring every flash the screen offered of Katniss sitting off to the side. But then Mellark said something that finally caught his ear.

"We're already married," he announced. Beside Gale, Prim's small hand caught hold of his wrist. Already married? But – it wasn't possible, there'd been no time – he would have found out somehow – they wouldn't have hidden this from their families. Besides, he _knew_ Katniss – she wasn't marrying anyone anytime soon. This was certainly another lie. (Was it?)

"How can that be?" Caesar asked. Now Gale was listening.

Mellark explained about the toasting – the toasting Gale had imagined he and Katniss would perform in a few years, once things had been sorted out, once he'd broken down her thick resolve against marriage and children. Peeta was growing upset and agitated with each passing word. "I wish we had waited until the whole thing was done officially."

"Surely even a brief time is better than no time?"

"Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar, if it weren't for the baby."

The people of Katniss and Peeta's home district erupted in shock and outrage, and for the first time Gale heard voices shouting over each other about the injustice of the Games, harsh words spewed about the Capitol, words Gale had only really felt safe expressing out in the woods. The Peacekeepers stationed around the room were starting to push in on the standing, stamping crowd. Gale looked down into Prim's terrified, tear-streaked face, and wondered: what did Katniss's sister know?

His mother murmured insistently that they needed to leave and get his siblings home before things became too wild, that Gale had had enough trouble with the law in the past to get involved. Gale still sat, watching the projection screen – Mellark pulled himself out of the chair, the Capitol crowd roaring even louder than District 12, and made his way to Katniss. Though the camera wasn't focused on them, Gale saw their hands intertwine.

Peacekeepers were starting to shove people outside, waving their guns around. District 12 wasn't usually this animated. Gale frowned as he stepped ahead of his family, weaving a pathway out for them.

_Fuck_, he thought as fresh air hit his face. He was thinking of how quickly and easily Katniss and Mellark had bonded in the arena, the way Katniss would sometimes look at the baker's son in a way Gale knew she'd never looked at him, like Mellark was a strange gift she wanted to keep unwrapping. He was thinking of how they'd avoided each other after the cameras had left town, how lost she'd seemed. He was thinking of the difference between them when they'd returned from the Tour. He was thinking of the Tour itself, day after day of acting in love – was it less of an act than Gale had thought? He was thinking of how lonely the nights would've felt, and how easy it would have been for them to find solace in each other, and how one thing can always lead to another. He was thinking that maybe a pregnancy wasn't such a distant possibility.

And suddenly, Gale knew that no matter what, he'd most likely already lost her.

"Fuck."

**XXX**


End file.
